In the past, ingress an egress to stores and the like have often been through swing-type doors that need to be manually opened and closed. Manually operating such doors, however, can be quite inconvenient especially when there is a large volume of pedestrian traffic passing into and out of a large store, or when persons needing access are laden with bulky items which need to set aside to allow for manual operation of the doors, followed by the extra effort of relifting and balancing of the items to be transported to or from the store. Manually operated swinging doors can also be hazardous to persons in close proximity to the doors, when passers through open the doors suddenly as they enter or exit the store. As will be appreciated, manually operated swinging doors can cause serious physical harm, to others.
In an effort to be more customer friendly, many supermarkets and other large stores utilize automatic swinging doors and sliding doors to facilitate customers ingress and egress to and from such stores. In such door systems, a single or double door panels are propelled by a drive system including a drive motor and a control system usually containing a microprocessor. All sorts of sensors are typically arranged in combination with such automatic door systems to assist the drive system in determining when to start or stop opening the doors, the speed at which the door panel(s) open and/or close, and a myriad of other factors for optimizing operation of the automatic doors.
Every day the store having such automatically controlled door systems is open for business, the door panel(s) is/are cyclically operated hundreds—if not thousands—times. As will be appreciated, when an automatic door system fails to properly operate, the ingress and egress means to the store or supermarket is adversely affected. Of course, the ability to allow customers into and/or from a supermarket or superstore has a significant impact on the willingness of a customer to return to such store. Accordingly, and when such automatic door systems fail to operate in the intended manner, it is imperative for such automatic door system to be returned to proper working order as quickly as possible.
Throughout the United States and foreign countries, there are numerous different automatic door manufacturers. Moreover, and for different reasons, different manufacturers frequently use different drive motors having different operating parameters for operating their specific door system. For example, the drive motor used in connection with one manufacturer's door system can be designed to develop a predetermined speed at a predetermined voltage while the drive motor used in connection with another manufacturer's door system may be designed to develop a different predetermined speed at said predetermined voltage. Moreover, the sensor technology used by different door manufacturers can vary between manufacturers. For example, the sensor technology used to determine the position of a drive shaft on the drive motor can vary or be totally different between differing door manufacturers. Accordingly, the controller for the doors is designed to operate with that particular system, drive motor and sensor technology.
Thus, when repairs to the automatically controlled system are required, the person called to affect the repair is frequently unable to successfully accomplish the repair since they do not have the required or necessary parts which fit or correspond to the particular door system that failed. Accordingly, the repairs are delayed until proper parts are ordered and shipped. Thereafter, the repair person must return to accomplish the desired repairs, thus, returning the door system to proper working order. In the interim, of course, the door system is disabled and ingress/egress to the facility is impaired.
Thus, there is a need and continuing desire for a universal controller which is compatible and readily works with automatic door systems of different manufacturers thereby significantly reducing the time required to return the automatic door system to proper working order.